Steve Cohen believed Juan Soto was headed back to the Yankees after a second in-person meeting that took place in December amid talks to bring the slugger to Queens.

That’s according to a lengthy feature published by Sports Illustrated on the Mets’ hunt to bring one of the biggest names in baseball into the fold this offseason.

Soto, of course, signed with the Mets in the end on a recording-setting 15-year, $765 million contract on Dec. 11, but a mere five days earlier, the Mets owner left a meeting with Soto and his camp in Florida, thinking any hope was all but dead.

Cohen convened a meeting with Soto and his representatives on Dec. 6 at Cohen’s Boca Raton home, where Soto told the Mets that one of his biggest priorities for where he was signing was making sure he had protection in the lineup.

Soto had Manny Machado behind him in San Diego and Aaron Judge during his lone season in The Bronx but didn’t feel the Mets had enough protection for his liking.

The conversation did not get much better from there — in Cohen’s eyes, at least — and at one point, his frustration seemed to boil over.

“Why are we even having this meeting? It sounds like you’re coming up with a lot of reasons why you don’t want to come to our team!” Cohen reportedly said during the sit-down.

After the meeting ended and Soto departed, Cohen told Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns that Soto was “going back to the Yankees.”

But to his surprise, Cohen got a call from Soto’s agent Scott Boras the next morning that stunned the Mets owner.

Boras told Cohen that the meeting was “really, really great” even though Cohen had felt as if that was “one of the worst meetings” he’d ever been in.

“Juan liked you. You definitely checked the ownership box,” Boras told Cohen in the phone call.

The following Sunday, Soto gave Boras the go-ahead to try and work out the deal with the Mets, and later that night, it had been finished, making the slugger a member of the Amazin’s.

Soto will make his official Mets debut when they open their regular season on Thursday in Houston.